Anuvrat Movements Theory and Practical

Author(s): Shivani Bothra
Publisher: USA Florida International University

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more poignantly than either knowledge of the laws of nature' or technical skills. Yet, we
do not know where to get them; and when (if) they are offered, we are seldom sure we
can trust them unswervingly."28 Tulsi recognized that religion could and should be a
source of this "moral knowledge” but to be effective in responding to modernization, it
must transcend the merely ritual, and it must focus on universal moral themes common to
many different traditions in order to inspire trust and not cause division.
The Construction of Tulsi's Modified Anuvrat Vows
The majority of monks and nuns I interviewed emphasized the slogan: Self
restraint is life. Interestingly, one female ascetic in her interview quoted Mahapragya?
and said: "Self-restraint is life and an unrestrained life is death. Vows develop self
control and modern-day's diseases are caused due to an unrestrained life style."30
Her response entails that the movement professed a way to respond to
modernization through self-restraint. In the course of my previous interviews, I had heard
multiple versions of the already stated above theory. Thus, my next question was more
direct: What is the difference between the traditional vows and the modernized vows for
the contemporary Indians? A senior monk's response was intellectual but complicated.
He stated: “One who has Samyag Drishti' can accept the traditional 12 anuvrat vows.
However, the Tulsian version is the 11 vows, which anyone following any religion giving
28 Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell Pub, 1994), 16–17.
29 Mahapragya was a monk named Nathmal, who later, became Tulsi's successor in 1995 as the tenth Acharya of the Jain Svetambara Terapanth tradition.
30 Sadhvi Shri, interview.
3. According to the Jain philosophy, Samyag Drishti (Right Faith) is one of the three jewels of Jainism, the other two being Right Knowledge and Right Action.
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